How do you remember a loved one that has passed? Alex has been creating objects and symbols that help to sum up what people have felt for their departed pets. She creates cremation urns of people’s lost pets and companions. Alex works with metal to create objects that will help an owner remember what their cat or dogs were like. Each urn is made by hand and made individual to each deceased pet, paying close attention to the details of their personality and what they meant to the owner.

How did you get into your art?

I went to school for painting but I always wanted to be more physical, active and build stuff so I started getting into wood. I started doing functional art like natural wood furniture, where I would go out and chop down trees and dry them. I started working in metal about twenty years ago. I like that it doesn’t break and you can do anything you want with it. I made this desk (the one right beside us).

What is it that draws you to metal?

I have a bit of a metal fetish. I like rusty and old. It is so solid and you can do whatever you want with it. Whatever form you can think of, it will hold any shape.  I also like the permanence of metal. It is around for a long time. Making the urns, it was kind of a combination of working with steel (which is permanent and attached to history). From the Iron Age on it has been a permanent fixture. That whole idea of history and permanence and making cremation urns, kind of fit together. Even after someone dies you still have that love, that emotion, those memories; whatever it is.

How did you get into the Urns?

I got into the death products really by accident. My friend who is an artist here, he had two cats that died and he wanted to make an urn for him. I had no idea what I was doing so it took literally six months to make my first urn. Actually that one is it (pointing to it on the table) it’s sort of a weird Easter Island, primitive piece. I have it back because his second cat died and he wanted one of the structural pieces with two. So he gave me it back and it’s my first urn.

Why do you think people connect with these pieces? Why do they feel the need to remember a pet?

People always want a visual representation of the memory. What I saw out there were all boxes or cookie jar shaped. I didn’t get how that connected with the memory of a single individual, with a singular personality. People connect in different ways. A lot of times for pets they want to remember the happy memories, they want to remember all the sweetness and the love that they shared. Often with people they want something to represent the beauty and the spirit of the person.

A lot of things come manufactured these days. Everything you make seems to be original, why is it important to make original pieces?

They make factory direct pet urns… Something that is hand made is more real. You don’t want to buy something factory direct to put something you love in. A lot of times when I do custom pieces I don’t even do sketches or anything like that. They just tell me what they want and I make it; after I talk to them for a while somehow my subconscious gets some aspect of the connection or their personality and I am creating something that comes out that is completely unique. When I ship it to them they tell me that it is exactly what they had in mind even though there was no visual connection.

What inspires each piece? How do you find inspiration?

A lot of it comes through play. I am the most creative when I have nothing that I have to put into a certain form. I can let what happens naturally happen. It really allows you a huge sense of freedom. Things can happen that you aren’t even aware of. When you try to repeat something that you already have in your head you already put a box around yourself. You already constrained it somehow. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing. I just look through the shapes or forms of the scrap metal I have out there. Having that out there and having nothing be demanded of your creative process really makes things happen. New things happen.

A more organic process?

Speaking of organic. Metal is usually connected with very masculine features. With my pieces I have really done the opposite and really gone for movement. I tried to make metal softer and change what our minds normally expect of it. I like taking it in a different direction.

How does the outside world influence you?

Once you are a visual person you just start thinking that way. It just becomes part of your brain. It is always processing. Once you are in that mindset it just never leaves…

The other part of the inspiration comes from people’s stories and what they have gone through. The stories are usually sad, horrible, and devastating. It is somehow the desire to help people through closure and help them through it. Just the desire to create something beautiful out of grief and out of suffering. It doesn’t just have to be sad and negative. There is some beauty there, love, joy, that exists in death. It is almost heightened and extreme. Doing this work, I didn’t expect what would come out of it, but it really has helped people deal with their grief.

What about the business side… how does that play into your life?

(Laughs) it is 90% of my time. I am really shy and suck as a sales person. I get so nervous and especially when you sell your own work it is much harder. Being an artist and selling your own art are just polar opposites.

Why is that?

When you are creating art it is very personal. You are putting everything you have out there. Then “hey do you want to buy my soul? It’s really a good deal!” So that part is just so hard to do. Selling it online does help a lot. I am a total computer geek; I write my own HTML code, do my own marketing. I represent a couple of artists professionally now. I do all the marketing, promotion, etc.

Every artist needs to be a business person to survive right?

You do, you really do. I always get mad because artists can really support themselves and their art so much more then ten or twenty years ago. There are so many artists who complain about not selling their work and will not do the business side. You are not going to paint or sculpt twenty four hours a day and have people just seek you out to buy it, that is really a fantasy.

Did you know about the business side starting out?

Yes, but I didn’t get it at school though. I basically read everyday about the business side and how to market your work.

What is your typical day like?

I have different days. Wednesdays are my stay at home days but I am always on the computer. I normally would come in, get on the computer, and check all my optimization stats and web analysis things. I am addicted to that stuff. Then I answer emails. I create my urns in groups of about ten so I can work for about two weeks on all of them.

I break it down, so I do all my prep work one day. All my welding on another couple days. My finishes take a week to finish all the layers on each urn.

I do all my welding outside. I load up on all my gear: the apron, the boots, the jeans, leather jacket, and the hood. I use a supplied air mask with oxygen because there are all those fumes.

It is really claustrophobic, it’s kind of like scooba diving. Especially because I am 5 1’; everything they make is for guys. Even my helmet is really big and the mask for the air is too big

Where did you get the name Alex in Welderland for your business?

I don’t know. I was looking for a name and was asking people and someone came up with it and I could never remember who it was.

If you weren’t doing this what do you think you would be doing?

I have had rough times doing this and getting the business side of it down. I have had couple moments in the recession where I have had slow months and it is really hard. The thing is…. I am psychologically unemployable (laughs). I have worked for other people and often if what they tell me to do doesn’t make sense even for their own business I can’t just do it anyway. I kind of gave up that idea that I would have to do something else. The recession means that I just have to work harder. If I did anything else it would have to be creating and optimize web-sites. I would be doing some internet and computer thing.

Alex's work can be seen here.

Visit her site here.